hi everyone,

I could have put this post under 'mental health' issues but felt more people read via these posts.
Our government here in Australia has decided to diagnose if there is mental illness/mental health issues in children aged 3. The reason being that they want to pick up these things early (as in early intervention) when other testing is done - for eg. for autism. I have not read the full report but it lists things such as 'mood changes, anger, extreme shyness, reluctance to sleep in their own bed, not wanting the light out when they go to sleep etc.

My gut feeling is I don't agree with diagnosing at this young age I feel that too many kids will be labelled as having a mental illness when they are just different than the norm and may or may not go on to have mental health issues later on.

It seems like we are suddenly over diagnosing. My son most likely would not have been picked up as having anxiety at age 3. He seemed fine then. When it was obvious he did have anxiety when he started school - there was no help available. The only thing I can think that might work well is if the stigma attached to mental health issues is reduced as a result (although it seems that this is already reduced by the focus on teens and suicide prevention) and also everyone stops blaming the parents.
I am curious to know what others think on here? What you feel overall as well as whether your child would have been picked up as having issues at age 3 or not?
Linda

Hi Linda,

My daughter at 3 had several of the traits they are looking at and funnily enough we lived in Australia at the time when she was 3. I think that my daughter anxiety is due to her never building up any coping skills and confidence in herself. At primary school she always picked very confident friends, who dealt with everything for her (quite clever when you think about it) and it was only when she got to secondary school when best friend decided there were other interesting girls that she would like to get to know and dear daughter was left on her own, yes with other friends but not the one she had put her total trust and reliability in and she felt as if she couldn't cope without her. I can't say that this would never of happened anyway however I do feel that kids like my daughter who do blend into the background, lack confidence etc are practically ignored at school by the teachers when these are the ones that they should be encouraging to come out of their comfort zone and put their hands up in class and be picked for school concerts etc. I think teachers are not interested in the kids anymore and are too focused on their own performance. Proof of this is that on a couple of occasions my daughter has been taught by teachers who have quickly recognised her lack of confidence and have encouraged her to involve herself in class and believe in her ability and the result has been for her confidence and self esteem to rise dramatically only for it to fall back when her teachers have been changed again.

I think from Australia's point of view "good on em" for recognising that kids do have problems and at least they are looking at trying to sort the problems rather than ignore them but like you hope that they don't start labeling kids as unfortunatley we still live in a world where there is a stigma attached to mental health.

hi Sue,

Yes I agree with the need for recognising these differences. I just wonder why we have moved away from accepting and teaching to 'differences' as an accepted thing and now we have to label before we accept/notice that a child may be different? Why can't teachers be taught to recognise differences in personality and teach accordingly?

I used to be a teacher - and taught through the 80s and to the end of the 90s and we were taught to teach to 'mixed ability' and under that term most of us also encompassed those who had different personalities - not just different abilities at the school work. Not all teachers liked this - they said it took up too much time. So it seems to have swung backwards - and now there is only time to consider attending more to a child who is 'different' if they have an official label. Perhaps if it is the only way - then it is a good move. But I can't help feeling we are going about it the wrong way and this will lead to the idea of unless you reach a kind of internal acceptance of "normal" you are going to end up being labelled.

If they had picked up your daughter's traits at 3 - what do you think could have been done to assist? Is it mostly from the school point of view of noticing and teaching accordingly or do you think there are things we could have done as parents? I often wonder if there was something I could have done - had I thought this might have been long term - but as I say - my son showed no signs at 3 so would have been missed. But would have loved recognition from the school when he was 6 - that he had a mental health issue and needed to be treated in a certain way to encourage his self confidence and involvement in school activities.

Interestingly - I note how you say your daughter made friends with confident kids. I had never really thought about that until you mentioned it - but that is exactly what my son did! I was, in fact, a little surprised but again, haven't thought too much about it as the friendships were reciprocal. But now at secondary school - the type of friend has changed dramatically. He has a quiet friend - is regarded as quiet by the teachers and he even tells me that he is quiet at high school. I am not sure what this tells me yet! But perhaps we are all different ourselves in different situations and given a larger number of students - perhaps many kids become quiet for a period of time.

Sorry - I think I raved on a bit there and got off topic! I obviously don't quite know what I think about the 3 year old diagnosis - but would love to hear more thoughts to keep me thinking on this one. On the one hand I also think it is great that they are recognising mental health issues from an early age - on the other hand I wonder if we aren't over diagnosing instead of embracing differences and giving kids the help they need for being them - and not for having a 'mental health' issue. But if it is the only way these days of helping - then perhaps it is a good thing.
Love to hear more comments - but thanks so much for sharing yours, Sue.
By the way - whereabouts in Australia were you at the time?
Sorry for such a long post everyone!
Linda

Hi Linda,

I think that the traits that they are proposing to look at at age 3 are probably very common at that age and I certainly wouldn't have said that my daughter suffered from mental health at 3 because she had these, in fact to me she has been a very normal child growing up, just one who lacked confidence in herself. I do blame myself and my husband for some of this because as parents (and I am sure I am not alone) we have tended to do everything for her, she is also an only child so has never had to sort out problems and disagreements with siblings. When I think back to my childhood, temperament wise my daughter is very like me, I was shy, quiet etc but growing up we were left to get on with it, I can't remember my parents entertaining me when it was school holidays, I had to go and make my own entertainment. There was always someone at home but we were never in it, hail rain or shine we were out and about, so although I was shy I learned coping skills and how to deal with situations.

In primary school kids are very protected and again everything is done for them. They don't need to take their own pencils etc, they have their own tray with everything in it in their classroom etc all they have to do is turn up. Then they enter the big scary world of secondary school where it is their reponsibility of remembering their books, pencils etc, finding the different classrooms and if that isn't bad enough they now look very little against all the older kids some of which are already 18 plus there are 5 times as many pupils in the school. Primary schools do a very good job of preparing them academically but socially a lot of kids are just not prepared for the shock to their system and for my daughter this coupled with the loss of her friend being constantly at her side totally devastated her and the worry and anxiety that this caused her resulted in her inability to physically go into school. I wouldn't even really call her a school refuser (although this is what she is to the school) as she would love to go but physically she can't do it no matter how hard she has tried and believe me she has tried so hard.

Who knows what the answer is, how I wish I did as I am sure everyone on here wishes and all we can do is plod on and keep smiling and keep everything crossed that one day everything will fall back into place.

Sue

p.s we were in Brisbane